LF301 - Bacteria: Genes to Behaviour

Module content and teaching

Principal aims

This module constitutes part of the final year teaching of the department’s provision of advanced level microbiology teaching. This module builds in an integrative fashion on key microbiological modules from previous years This module allows students an opportunity to study molecular and cellular microbiology at the level of current research. The module covers the study of the mechanisms of gene regulation in bacteria at the molecular and cellular level and includes the rapidly developing area of bacterial cell biology. Students will be introduced to a range of molecular mechanisms which show how bacteria respond to their environment including invasion of the host by pathogenic bacteria. The information on gene content of organisms generated by comparative genomics can only be useful if we can understand how gene expression is co-ordinated, including the integration of metabolism, cell growth and environmental responses.

Principal learning outcomes

One of the principle aims of the module is to consider bacteria as complex systems that respond to changes in their external and internal environments by overlapping response mechanisms, which exhibit a considerable degree of conservation throughout the microbial world.